Search results

This paper is drawn from a larger study investigating community perceptions of police legitimacy in the Monash Local Government Area (LGA), in the Australian state of Victoria. Monash had seen declining results in the official government survey in the indicators that assessed police legitimacy over the preceding decade. The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of both migrant and non-migrant participants to understand the role of migrant status in influencing assessments of police legitimacy in Monash LGA.

Through six focus groups, 18 interviews and one e-mail response with 31 individuals, perceptions of Victoria Police among the communities of Monash were collated and analysed.

One of the key findings of the study was that ethnic diversity and/or migrant status of community members were a key factor raised in response to questions about community perceptions of the legitimacy of Victoria Police in Monash LGA. Demographic change had been significant in Monash LGA over the preceding decade, including increasing ethnic diversity in the population and a shift in migration patterns from predominantly European to migrants from East and South Asia. In this paper, the authors suggest that the migrant status of Monash residents was a key factor that both migrant and non-migrant participants thought influenced perceptions of the police. Accordingly, because migrants make up a significant cohort of Australia’s population, we afford due attention to this previously overlooked topic.

The practical implications of this paper are as follows: existing Victoria Police partnerships in the Monash community should be continued and expanded where possible; Victoria Police should also prioritise partnerships with large, new migrant communities, for example, Monash’s Chinese communities; orientation for new migrants to Victoria around the criminal justice system, including Victoria Police, would help new migrants be more aware of their rights and what to expect of law enforcement in their new host country; police should continue to increase representation of ethnic diversity in the force via recruitment of greater numbers of ethnically diverse police members.

Although there have been previous Australian studies on migrant status as a factor in perceptions of criminal justice (see Murphy and Cherney, 2011, 2012; Hong Chui and Kwok-Yin Cheng, 2014), the paper identifies a distinct narrative around migrants’ views of Victoria Police which the authors believe warrant further investigation using an example from a local context. Furthermore, most research in this field has been quantitative. The current study provides additional new insights through an in-depth qualitative approach.

Examines how data on job stress, health, anxiety and daily hassle were collected via survey questionnaires from 1,925 staff at Monash University campuses. The sample included academic, general, administrative, technical and library staff, with both genders and representation from age, employment and seniority groupings. Shows that results indicated significant positive relationships between job stress and anxiety, daily hassle, and health, the latter suggesting that self‐reported stress at work was associated with absence from work, visits to medical practitioners, and frequency of illnesses and accidents. Reports comparisons across campus, gender, age and job type, and makes some overall contrasts between these data and those previously reported for a rural university. Discusses implications for health promotion among university staff.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of encounters on police legitimacy and levels of trust in the police in the Monash Local Government Area in the state of Victoria, Australia. Monash was chosen as it had experienced declining results in the official National Survey of Community Satisfaction with Policing in relation to police legitimacy and trust.

A qualitative case study comprising 18 interviews and six focus groups with community representatives from Monash is employed in the paper.

When procedural justice approaches are applied during encounters between the police and the public, encounters contribute to securing legitimacy for the police. Contact between the police and the public in everyday situations also enhances trust in the police, depending on the way the police conduct themselves during such interactions.

Findings from a qualitative case study are not able to be widely generalised but the conclusions are still useful for informing insights into processes impacting police legitimacy and trust.

Contributes to informing evidence-based police practice around the way police conduct themselves during community interactions; informs policy decisions around allocation of funding for law enforcement with more officers required to carry out community policing; emphasises the importance of prioritising partnerships with communities; demonstrates that positive police/community relations have wider social cohesion implications in a contemporary era of counter-terrorism priorities.

The majority of research in this field to date has been quantitative. A qualitative approach provides fresh insights into the mechanisms of police legitimacy, especially the role of encounters and procedural justice.

A fast production scheduling system, the very fast scheduler (VFS), has been developed by the authors. It creates a capacity constrained production schedule within one minute of elapsed time for problems of a size encountered in industry. The quality of the schedules is comparable with the best alternative heuristic scheduling techniques. The speed of the scheduler is such that it can be used on a real‐time basis to plan capacity, adjust priorities and other parameters and derive new schedules.

The alternative to using source lines of code (SLOC) for costing software projects is to use function points. Functional point analysis (FPA), which was first introduced in 1979, has now been widely accepted as the industry standard for estimating software size and costs. International standard bodies like the International Function Point Users’ Group (IFPUG) has been maintaining a repository of data based on projects that were drawn from 14 countries in North America, Europe and Asia/Australasia. This paper presents the results of the analysis that was performed on these data together with recommendations such as benchmarks for software projects. Project measures such as functional size, work effort, project delivery rate, speed of delivery and project duration were analysed using the statistical package, Systat. Apart from project duration, all distributions were log‐normal, thus suggesting that the results can be used for software benchmarking. Regression analysis on the data further identified correlation of functional size with other project measures that can be used as a basis for planning and estimating software projects. Further work on the repository involves other project measures such as team size and software defects.

This paper reports on the design of an attitude scale to be used in studies investigating relationships between principals and members of school councils in Victoria. The scale, which is composed of twenty‐four items, measures attitudes toward principal domination of council. The Likert method of scale construction was used. Item analysis demonstrated that all items discriminated between high and low scorers (Edwards t≥3.17). Internal consistency, estimated by using Kuder Richardson and Cronback's Alpha, yielded a coefficient of .80705. The corrected split‐half reliability based on the responses of 297 principals and council members was .72835. Test‐retest reliability was .69314.

Fettling is the process of removing excess material from castings. This excess material is often formed at the die’s parting lines during the casting process as molten material is injected into the die at high pressure. By using a robot as a positioning tool for the fettling operation, the process can be carried out safely and with consistent results. This paper proposes a computer‐assisted robotic fettling technique using visual feedback. In particular, emphasis is placed on the establishment of a technique and investigating its performance for the determination of the casting profile. Also examines the process parameters associated with high‐speed fettling operations. Further, the experimental set‐up employed and the results obtained are also presented.

The increasing use of critical solid state components working on very small operating currents and the tendency towards high density packaging of these components on printed boards place greater importance on the cleanliness of the assemblies. Some of the components used cannot be subjected to total immersion solvent cleaning; consequently flux residues will remain on the boards during service. Flux residues under this condition can be objectionable either because they are overactive and chemically corrosive or because they degrade the insulation resistance of the printed board laminate.

Focuses on a computerized sales forecasting system for the control of automotive spare parts. Outlines the logic of the forecasting method, a refinement of exponential smoothing, together with a method for monitoring forecast errors. Describes experiences in developing, implementing and operating the system.